Wells Prospers Following Surgery

DUNEDIN -- Every time David Wells looks at his left elbow, he sees the curved scar -- and remembers the day his arm failed to negotiate the curve that caused it.

``I was in Double A in Knoxville, and I`d just pitched two or three complete games,`` he said. ``I snapped a curveball, and it snapped the elbow.``

That was in 1984, and the injury put him out for the rest of the year and all of 1985.

Damage to his elbow included a disrupted ulnar nerve, three bone spurs and torn ligaments and muscles. (``It was a mess, a bloody mess,`` Wells said.)

It would have ended most pitchers` careers, ``especially being in the minor leagues,`` Wells said. But he went through major reconstructive surgery and a long rehabilitation to become one of the pitchers the Toronto Blue Jays will count on this year in the late innings.

``Right now it feels good,`` said Wells, who has allowed two runs and seven hits in 5 innings while walking one and striking out five this spring. ``It gets stiff at times, but it`s nothing serious enough to keep me out of games.``

``He has a good arm, and you don`t give up on a good arm, whether it`s good or needs an operation,`` Toronto pitching coach Al Widmar said. ``Operations have been very successful.``

Wells, 24, showed just how successful his had been when he was called up from Triple-A Syracuse Aug. 30 and finished the season 4-1 with a save, a 1.50 earned run average and 26 strikeouts in 24 innings.

His fastball was clocked in the mid-90s before the surgery -- and after.

He had made his major-league debut in June but was sent down after going 0-2 and giving up nine runs in 5 innings.

``He had the same good stuff when he came up the first time,`` Widmar said. The difference was simply his ``youth.``

Now that Wells has some major-league experience and some major-league success, the Blue Jays will use him as a left-handed stopper or setup man for right-hander Tom Henke.

``I`ll be `The Terminator` from the left side, and he`ll be `The Terminator` from the right,`` Wells said.

Spoken by a man who was almost `The Ex-terminator.`

-- Rookie outfielder Rob Ducey has found that baseball`s not so tough.

``Softball is a lot more challenging than baseball,`` Ducey, 22, from Cambridge, Ontario, said, ``because it`s a lot faster than baseball is.

``Everything`s so close, and you`ve always got to be moving. Baseball`s a more relaxed game. I`m not saying it`s easy, but it`s more relaxed than softball.``

He`s not saying baseball`s easy, but he made it look easy when he finally decided to play.

At age 8, he started playing fastpitch softball. He didn`t play baseball until he was 15, and he signed with Toronto when he was 18.

``I guess my mother wanted me to get into something to keep me off the streets,`` he said.

Now he`s into baseball, and he seems relaxed, even though he and another rookie, Dominican Sil Campusano, are battling for the starting center-field job.

``Everyone has to start sometime,`` he said of the pressure that comes with being a rookie. ``Everybody says we`re young, but everybody was young and never played in the big leauges. Mattingly and Boggs were rookies.``

The center-field position became available when the Blue Jays decided to make left fielder George Bell a designated hitter and move center fielder Lloyd Moseby to left.

Ducey said he and Campusano, 21, have been friends since 1984 when they played in the Instructional League.

``I`d rather both of us were in the big leagues,`` Ducey said. ``One of the things Toronto likes to do is platoon, which wouldn`t bother me at all.``

Ducey bats left-handed, and Campusano is a right-handed hitter, so that`s a possibility.

``That`s a tough possibility,`` manager Jimy Williams said, ``because we platoon at catcher; we platoon at third base; and we have platooned at first. You can only do that so much. You can only carry so many players on the roster.``

``Sil is one of my better friends,`` Ducey said. ``I`d like to play with him in the big leagues.``

``No speak English,`` Campusano said.

TORONTO BLUE JAYS

-- 1987 FINISH: 96-66, second place in the American League East, two games behind Detroit.

-- MANAGER: Jimy Williams (third year).

-- NEWCOMERS TO WATCH: There aren`t any. The Blue Jays hibernated over the winter.

-- STARTING PITCHERS: Three of the top four in the rotation won 13 or more games in `87: left-hander Jimmy Key (17-6, 2.76 ERA) and right-handers Jim Clancy (15-11, 3.54) and Dave Stieb (13-9, 4.09). Last year`s late-season addition, lefty Mike Flanagan, went 3-2 with a 2.37 ERA and will return to the rotation. John Cerutti (11-4, 4.40) should be the fifth starter.

-- RELIEF PITCHING: Right-hander Tom Henke (34 saves last year) might be the best stopper in the league. He`ll be joined by left-hander David Wells and right-handers Mark Eichhorn, Duane Ward, Jose Nunez and Todd Stottlemyre. Jeff Musselman, a left-hander with a 12-5 record last year, is recovering from arthroscopic shoulder surgery and should be ready in May.